Longtime Upperline chef Ken Smith sets last day on job before entering seminary

There are myriad possibilities as to why a meal at the Upperline could leave a person enriched for reasons that transcend food. One is the communal hug diners feel upon entering the converted Uptown residence. Another is the aesthetic rush of being surrounded by the paintings of local artists while eating food that often pays explicit homage to the work of local chefs.

JOHN MCCUSKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEUpperline Chef Ken Smith is leaving the restaurant for the seminary. Smith wedded the culinary styles of his native Avoyelles parish with local cuisine. Upperline

1413 Upperline St., 504.891.9822

Diners' delight also could be a byproduct of the methods Ken Smith employs to get himself through particularly bad days.

"I remember certain parts of Scripture where there is food involved. That's sort of what keeps me interested in what I am doing if I am having a low point, " said the Upperline's longtime chef. "We come into the world needing nourishment to survive and grow and for our existence, to keep us going. It has a purpose, and it has a purpose that can be traced way back to when Jesus was here."

Anyone who has tried Smith's food at the Upperline -- the dark, dense gumbo, the nostril-flaring Gulf shrimp piquant, the duck-andouille etouffee that is filling in more ways than one -- should not be surprised to discover there is a spiritual component to his cooking. Upperline owner JoAnn Clevenger, who has worked with Smith for nearly 20 years, was still shocked late last month when Smith told her he was leaving the kitchen behind to become a priest.

"I was stunned, " she said. "We are very happy and thrilled for him. We are just sad for ourselves."

Smith, who will cook his final meal at Upperline July 31, said his decision to enter the seminary had nothing to do with wanting to get out of the restaurant business. "I just started paying attention to my life, " he said, "to the priests who were around me, to the spiritual type of lifestyle that I saw in them." Becoming a priest, he said, is "something that I've thought about all my life."

ELIOT KAMENITZ / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEJoAnn Clevenger with Chef Ken Smith at her restaurant Upperline. The portrait on the wall is of Smith with Upperline's late chef Tom Cowman whom he trained under.

As has, Smith would be the first to admit, cooking. He grew up in Natchitoches, where his mother was a private cook for a local attorney. The job somewhat influenced the way Smith's family dined -- "my sister and I were the only kids on the block eating lobster" -- but his culinary heritage is firmly in the traditional Creole cooking of the Cane River Valley in northwestern Louisiana.

Smith's maternal grandfather was a farmer. "What he picked from the garden we had for dinner, and we had dinner at 2 p.m., " he said. He remembers grillades that weren't quite as spicy as what's found elsewhere in Louisiana. When he's feeling homesick, he says he puts on his copy of the documentary, "A Common Pot: Creole Cooking on Cane River."

Smith's interest in cooking manifested at an early age. He became an avid cookbook reader and collector, a hobby that eventually brought him together with Clevenger. The two were introduced 19 years ago by Jan Longone, proprietor of a vintage culinary bookshop in Ann Arbor, Mich. Smith had recently moved to New Orleans to attend Delgado Community College's culinary arts and hospitality program. Clevenger, a fellow child of north Louisiana, hired him to be an intern in Upperline's kitchen.

Tom Cowan was Upperline's chef at the time. When he passed away in 1994, Richard Benz took over. When Benz left to open Dick & Jenny's, Clevenger hired Smith to replace him, making him only the fourth chef in the 27-year-old restaurant's history -- and one of the relatively few African-Americans to head the kitchen of a prominent New Orleans restaurant.

Smith then spent 10 years executing a menu that bears the mark of everyone who's held his position (beginning with Clevenger's son Jason).

"Chef Tom built on what Jason had started, " Clevenger explained. "Richard built on what Tom and Jason had done. And Ken has built on that foundation."

Smith's considerable influence can be tasted in all of Upperline's food, which draws on influences from across Louisiana -- the Cane River Country Shrimp nods specifically to his native part of the state -- and beyond. But it is perhaps a sign of his selfless, priestly nature that the dishes he holds particularly dear are those that pay tribute to others: Drum Anthony, for instance, an updated version of a special trout dish served at the dearly departed Central City restaurant Uglesich's, or Tom Cowan's Famous Roast Duck.

"Chef Tom taught me the roast duck, " Smith said. "I really respect that dish and respect the recipe of that dish. I've always said that if I went to another restaurant or was blessed with my own restaurant that I would carry that dish with me."

While another restaurant job is almost certainly not in Smith's future, he doesn't expect to let his pans or extensive cookbook collection go unused.

"I read this one story about a priest who cooked for other priests, and it became a sort of cooking club for priests, " he said. "If I'm blessed to be ordained, that's something I can do and still cook in a very small and private way."